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The Kings County Board of Elections purged 126,000 registered Democrats from the voting rolls in Brooklyn, prompting an outcry from Mayor Bill de Blasio and an audit from Comptroller Scott Stringer. “It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists,” de Blasio said. “The perception that numerous voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed.”

Polling places didn’t open on time, voting machines malfunctioned, and voters showed up to find their names weren’t on the rolls. Some voters had their party affiliations mysteriously switched from Democratic or Republican to independent or non-affiliated and couldn’t vote in the closed primaries. And 3 million New Yorkers, 27 percent of the electorate, didn’t get to vote because they weren’t registered with the Democratic or Republican parties, and the deadline to change party affiliation was an absurd 193 days before the April 19 primary, as I reported on Monday.

As a result, only 19.7 percent of eligible New Yorkers cast a ballot, the second-lowest voter turnout among primary states after Louisiana, according to elections expert Michael McDonald. There were over 900 calls from frustrated voters to the Election Protection Coalition, more than in any other primary state.

These problems could have been avoided if New York had electoral reforms like same-day voter registration and early voting. Comptroller Stringer recently proposed a number of good policies that would make it easier to vote and have been introduced in the New York legislature. Hopefully the problems in the primary will lead to legislative action.

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Moreover, Brooklyn’s voter purge could have been stopped if the Supreme Court had not gutted the Voting Rights Act, since Kings County was one of the jurisdictions that had to approve its voting changes with the federal government based on a history of voting discrimination. Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan were covered under Section 5 of the VRA in 1970 because they had English-only literacy tests dating back to 1921 and very low turnout among minority voters.

In 2013, New York urged the Supreme Court to preserve the VRA. “The benefits of Section 5 greatly exceed the minimal burdens that Section 5 may impose on States and their political subdivisions,” it wrote in an amicus brief.

Instead, we’ve seen problems across the country in the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the VRA—from five-hour lines in Arizona’s Maricopa County, to voters turned away from the polls in North Carolina to last-minute voter purges in Brooklyn.

Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders should join forces to make it easier to vote, like they did recently when jointly suing Arizona. Restrictive voting laws hurt younger voters who are more likely to support Sanders and voters of color who are more likely to support Clinton. This cause would be good for the Democratic Party and, more importantly, for democracy.

Meh. In the first place, the turnout on the Dem side was right in the middle of the pack. Only a handful of primary states have had more Democrats vote, proportional to their population. Second. meh. I'm sure the "low" turnout on the Democratic side is a reflection of the fact that, contrary to the apocalyptic rhetoric coming from Bernie supporters in the rarified atmosphere of The Nation's comments page, the vast majority of Dem voters will be perfectly happy with either candidate. In spite of all attempts to drive a wedge between them, they agree on at least 80% of the issues -- and the issues they agree on are the ones that ordinary Democrats care about.

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Kathryn Levysays:

April 21, 2016 at 10:32 am

I am distressed that people don't seem to be taking the issue of purging and registration flipping more seriously. In my area of Long Island, a poll worker reported that 20% of voters, mostly long time Democrats, were not able to vote, except with affidavit ballots, which will probably never be counted. This experience was echoed by several poll workers, who reported a highly unusual number of people who weren't allowed to vote--usually around 10%. Please take those percentages in. How might they have changed the election? In addition, several people I know, including my husband, or friends of friends, sometimes people who had checked their registration the day before and confirmed they were registered Democrats, were not allowed to vote. Some of us are trying to collect information about this and take action as soon as possible. Why isn't there more concern and urgency here? Is anyone interested in the ballots of the disenfranchised actually being counted? And I refuse to buy into the fiction that the Clinton campaign and the DNC had nothing to gain from election fraud or voter suppression. This is The Nation, not the corporate media--I expect more, frankly. I very much appreciate all of Ari Berman's writing on this essential subject, but we need an additional piece about this that thoroughly examines what happened in New York and Arizona, and discusses the possibility of election fraud. I'm afraid we will see more of this in the coming primaries.

(46)(1)

Ian Nimmosays:

April 21, 2016 at 3:16 am

Maybe "This Is How Clinton Won New York"

(55)(2)

Jeff Nichelsonsays:

April 20, 2016 at 10:33 pm

Of course Turnout was low! That was by design: They prohibited the most active voters from participating!
NY has "Fusion" ballots in general elections. This allows the growth of "Third" or "Independent" parties, who can then form coalitions with others including the Big 2.
A member of the "Working Families Party" would have no reason to register as a Democrat.
The Primary, on the other hand, is run by the Democratic (or Republican) Party, which makes its own rules. By excluding all but "Registered" Democrats, they banned the most politically active progressive voters in the city, the Party can control the outcome, but "Turnout" is down, because so many were not permitted to vote.
This means the Party can spin the narrative, but they don't get the voter input Primaries are allegedly intended to facilitate.

(56)(3)

Mike De Martinosays:

April 20, 2016 at 10:19 pm

Democrats have done a lousy job of bringing indies into the fold.

(40)(0)

Tara Polensays:

April 20, 2016 at 8:46 pm

All of a sudden, people are upset that Independents can't vote in the primaries in NYS when we've had closed primaries here for decades? Did they expect new rules for Berniecrats? I prefer not having people who've never had a vested interest in my party joining at the last moment and affecting who we choose to represent us. Or worse, deciding to vote *against* a candidate to increase their own party's choice's chances, as happens in open primaries. No, please don't advocate for that. It's misguided. DMV registration? Sure, but pick a party. In NY, pick a party -- it's not an allegiance, it's an entry to vote in primaries. If you don't know that you need to do that, an election like this teaches you. The Independents/Greens/WFP/etc. won't mess that up next time, will they? You can't be both. If you're a Democrat, fine. If you're not, sorry, no, you don't get to pick the nominee for my party, just like I don't get to pick for the Republicans.

I'm getting tired of a publication that I have long read and financially supported being so biased for Bernie and against Hillary. Complaints about polling places opening late, malfunctioning voting machines (which happens every year, I'm sure) or people party's being mysteriously switched are legitimate, but you are not giving your readers details here, Ari! How many polling places opened late? How late? How many voters were affected? Were they able to return later to vote? How many machines malfunctioned? One? Fifty? A thousand? For how long? Were they replaced? In an hour? In four hours? Never? How many voters' party affiliations were switched? 50? 500? 10,000? Were they not permitted to vote by another method? As frustrating as it must have been for them, they were still able to vote via affidavit, were they not? Yes? No? Isn't this why we have alternative methods, in case someone is missing from the rolls when they shouldn't be? Did the Brooklyn BOE screw up big time? It seems so. Did they already explain why, for the most part? Yes, they said they were short on staff for several months and purged a lot of people at once at the end of last year, but you left that out, didn't you? It seems like some crazy number, but if had it been spread out over the course of the year, it might not have seemed so large, perhaps, considering there are nearly 2 million voters on the rolls as of April 1, 2016. Is it a conspiracy? I tend to doubt it. But I always tend to doubt conspiracy theories, so maybe it's just me. Of the voters whose party affiliations were switched, is there evidence that these were all voters for one particular candidate? When a whole building or a whole block is affected, it seems unlikely that any particular voters were targeted, but if they were, by all means, please demonstrate that, since you must know you are helping to spread this paranoia.

Bernie's supporters actually believe Hillary herself is behind some dastardly plan to disenfranchise them. They still believe she was behind some plot in Arizona, despite your own publication's story (thank you) that she, Bernie and the DNC are suing Arizona.

New York's voter registration is not unfair. Personally, I've had no issues with it for 32 years, but I always vote. Every election. EVERY election. The rules have not changed. Why don't you investigate how many people work in the Brooklyn office of the BOE, how much they are paid, and how much paperwork they are expected to do? There might be a story there.

(24)(95)

Sheila Smithsays:

April 22, 2016 at 9:12 pm

So people are waking up to the entrenched problem with the control by two parties. This is a problem no matter who your preferred candidate is. How can anyone support voter disenfranchisement? Party loyalty should not be required to cast a ballot about who are representatives are going to be.

(8)(2)

Tanya Reneltsays:

April 21, 2016 at 2:21 pm

Tara, first off, the Democratic and Republican parties make it nearly impossible for a candidate to run on a third party ticket. They can't even participate in debates! So instead of complaining about people switching to democrat to be able to vote for Bernie, shouldn't we be focusing on how corrupt the 2 party system is? It's not the voters fault. You seem to have a lot of hostility toward third party members. I've been a democrat my whole life, but I'm leaving the party after this election, after seeing how corrupt the DNC is. You also seem to think all the voter suppression and election fraud is somehow ok. It's not a coincidence the same things have been happening in state after state. It's not a conspiracy theory if it's true.

(28)(1)

Amalie Callahansays:

April 21, 2016 at 1:44 pm

Which do you care more for, your team (Democrats) or your country's democracy? In my view, fewer voters = poorer democracy, and our country is already approaching a plutocracy (or oligarcy, as Bernie would say).

(27)(1)

Anne Jureksays:

April 20, 2016 at 9:49 pm

Aren't concerned about the low voter turnout in NY?

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Tara Polensays:

April 21, 2016 at 12:02 am

It's not like we're talking about immigrants and language barriers and voter ID issues. We're talking about people who were so little vested that they didn't vote in the past few elections or didn't check or didn't know that they can vote on the Working Families party line (like I have since they formed) while still being a Democrat, so you can still help the WFP gain power and funding while still being able to vote in primaries. Sometimes it takes and election like this, every so often, for people to learn the rules. It doesn't mean the rules themselves should be tossed out.

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Wes Matthewssays:

April 21, 2016 at 11:18 am

Tara, this is simply not true. I went to my polling station and my name wasn't there. The ladies handling the ballots said that it had been happening _all day long_ and that it was "probably because I hadn't voted since the 2012 presidential election". They then gave me an affidavit ballot. Unbelievable! The Board of Elections would purge voters from the rolls simply because they hadn't voted in four years - and this is acceptable? Does that sound legitimate to you? Do you actually believe that there wasn't anything fishy going on? I was a registered Democrat, I voted for Obama and received regular Dem Party mail at my home. My registration, I later found out on the website, was listed for this primary season as "Independent", which is probably why I wasn't listed. This election was rigged and Hillary supporters just don't want to admit it because it casts some truly terrible shadows on the entire process.

(37)(3)

Edward M Protassays:

April 20, 2016 at 7:46 pm

I live in Oregon. Voter registration automatically occurs as a part of your visit to any DMV. We ALL vote by mail, so early voting becomes a moot point. Our primary is May 17, and you can register or change party affiliation up until April 26. Voter "turnout" is usually in the 70% range. If the goal is to promote democracy, then the tools are there. If the goal is to game the system and rig it for the benefit of the establishment, like New York does, than yesterday's result is what you get. Funny, Hillary's 8 years of experience in NY did nothing to solve this fundamental problem. This kind of incrementalism might lead to a solution in what, 100 years, or so?

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Jeff Nichelsonsays:

April 20, 2016 at 10:36 pm

Keep the faith, Oregon.
The East Coast Establishment is leaving us bloodied but not bowed. We'll get the campaign to you, and we know you and California will run an outstanding anchor leg with a strong finish!

Without Sanders in the General election, it will be even lower. We'll see what the "Sandy Hook apology" gal does this time. My bet is she'll be silent now that she's worried. Bernie has already noted this NY problem. My bet is that Clinton spin artists (no more "Hillary") and the MSM will insinuate "bad loser" at Bernie Sanders.

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Jeff Nichelsonsays:

April 20, 2016 at 10:54 pm

I hope you are wrong about Turnout.
Do what you want at the top of the ticket, but there are a lot of progressives down-ballot that are needed to keep the White House in check.
Here's a partial list deserving your attention:
Zephyr Teachout
Luis Sepulvida
Noah Sargent
Bill Perkins
Ali Mirza
Jeff Kurzon
Eric Kinson
Diana Hird
Jonathan Clarke
This is not a comprehensive list, nor an endorsement, just a few names to get you started (in case you want to volunteer or send $27). The point is, seeing the US Capitol, and Albany, stocked with progressives is probably more important than who wins the White House.
There are progressives in the "d" Party, and other fusion candidates with Green, Working Family, or other backing, that need the kind of turnout the Democrats feared in their primary.
STAY ENGAGED!

(22)(1)

Carol Feldsays:

April 20, 2016 at 3:37 pm

Maybe NY should change the rules and let Independents vote in the Primaries.

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Jeff Nichelsonsays:

April 20, 2016 at 10:38 pm

NY doesn't get to decide that. The Primary is a private function and rules are made by the Party itself.